2018 COMC purchases: 10 years later...

At long last I'm finishing up my 2018 COMC pickups with my favorites--my PC guys from the 2008 draft class!  It's this here blog's answer to GCRL:  Henne, Hart, Manningham, Long:

Record-setting RB Mike Hart is up first with a fun little trifecta.  His Stadium Club RC (#1799/1799!) leaves me just his '08 Upper Deck base short of his first-year run.  Next is a Rainbow parallel of his 2008 UD Icons auto, which looks to be my 64th card featuring his signature.  That product has a design I don't terribly care for but I love adding any new autograph of Hart.  And finally, I came up with a first for his collection:  a printing plate!  It happens to be a Michigan uni card, too, since it's from 2008 Press Pass Legends.  That's 1/1 #119 in my collection!

Now let's look at the Chad Henne pyramid of greatness--look out, Ron Swanson!  While I'd recommend more daily servings of autographs there's plenty here for a healthy collection.  Up top is another great example of Contenders' Playoff Ticket insert I enjoy so much.  A couple solo jersey relics from 2008 Leaf Certified Materials (#d /100) and 2009 Prestige bookend two more that include Chad's fellow '08 Wolverine draftee with the Dolphins, who's coming up next.  Those are #d /250 and /500, respectively.  Henne continues to rule the football collection with 124 hits and is getting close to joining 300-card PC guy Charles Woodson with a new total of 290.

Former #1 overall pick OT Jake Long gets a double-dip with his own group of cards in addition to the pair he shares with Henne above.  He joins Hart in the RC club with his 2008 Topps Letterman base (#104/419), and I appear to be four cards short of Jake's first-years.  I also added a new signature of his (Michigan uni!) thanks to 2008 SAGE Squared, a card he shares with fellow first-rounder Ryan Clady, who went 12th overall to Denver after a good career at Boise State, then enjoyed a solid NFL run cut short by injuries (sounds kind of familiar!).  To those I added a pair of SPx triple jersey relics, giving me nine of his cards from that product featuring many such variations.

This haul moved Long back ahead of Braylon Edwards with 82 hits as the fourth player to hit 80+, leaving him three shy of the next guy you'll see.

You may have heard of him.  Michigan star WR?  Super Bowl hero?  Namesake of this here blog?  Back in January I posted some Sportlots pickups that had me celebrating 200 Many Manninghams, and now I have a few more to add to that pile.  First is a pair of pretty Panini parallels (say that three times fast!):  2011 Gridiron Gear Gold X's (#068/100) and Prestige Xtra Points Red (#046/100).  I love any new Manninghams but I'm extra happy to add some numbered inserts.

Along with those is a new pair of Giants jersey relics.  The first is the Jumbo Swatch version of his 2008 Donruss Gridiron Gear relic, a piece that looks great and is numbered 16/50.  From the same year's Leaf Limited I found a Rookie Jumbo Jerseys Team Logo swatch (#18/50) cut in the shape of New York's logo.  Well, a rough outline, anyway!

Manningham's 85 hits are good for second place, though he's a crazy 29 behind top guy Chad Henne, meaning I can't say I have too many!

Now that I'm finally done with these, some show pickups and trade packages should come next.

2018 COMC purchases: PC potpourri

It's almost time for me to say goodbye to 2018 and the purchases I made last year on this fine evening in...MAY?!  Yeah, it's taken me far too long to post these, but what else is new?  Ignore my procrastination and enjoy some very cool cardboard starring some of my football PC guys:

Touchdown Tim is the first of eight different players today, and I was quite happy with this little haul:  three numbered inserts and a hit.  '96 Leaf's Grass Roots has a grassy felt feel to it, '99 Score Showcase was celebrating 10 years of the football product, and 2000 Topps Gallery's Player's Private Issue parallel (#d /250) is a nice example of how Topps could get it so right before they firmly planted their heads up their collective ass towards the end of the 2000s.  Meanwhile, a Panthers blue 2001 Pacific Invincible jersey is hit #10 of the Wolverines RB legend.

I didn't have many cards of this duo so I thought it made sense to pair up 2007 Cardinals draft picks Alan Br--

dude that kills QBs dead, and speedy WR Steve Breaston when showing off this 2007 trio.  Branch appears on a Donruss Gridiron Gear Gold Holofoil X's (#010/100) parallel as well as his Upper Deck Trilogy RC (#111/399), a card from a product that looks great with its acetate-ness, but can be annoying to track down (and scan!).  Breaston joins in the rookie fun with his Select first-year (#203/599).  I now need just three of Branch's RCs and five of Breaston's.  Progress!

We're closing in on two months since I started this latest series with Jason Avant's haul--10 cards--and now I'm showing off nine more of his former position- and team-mate, Braylon Edwards.  The first two are parallels from 2006 Score (Gold) and 2010 Contenders (Playoff Ticket) and are numbered to 600 and 99, respectively.

The next seven are all relics I grabbed at low, low prices, a.k.a. my COMC wheelhouse.  A few of these are even dubbed "Prime" by Panini meaning their swatches are above average.  2007, '08, '09, and 2011 are all represented here and there's a mix of numbering between 50 and 299, not to mention designs and swatches.

This hit parade launches Bray-Bray into third place in my football collection with 81 hits, ahead of Jake Long and behind only Chad Henne and Mario Manningham.  His new PC total of 285 also equals Henne's, though that tie will be broken in this run's final post.

Here's a quartet I wasn't expecting to score when I was buying up cards on COMC last year:  a RC and three great parallels of tackling machine David Harris!  His beautiful Michigan uniformed first-year from '07 Elite leaves me just one shy of Harris' RC run, plus it just flat-out looks nice.  The other three are numbered parallels from 2016 Donruss.  In order:  Press Proofs Silver (#032/100), Press Proofs Silver Die Cut (#27/75), and Stat Line Season (#088/108).  The die-cut card scanned the best and really does look terrific, but the Stat Line insert remains a favorite of mine.  David did indeed compile 108 tackles in 2015, the sixth and final time he crossed the century mark in that category over his 11 NFL campaigns.

I don't really have anything that goes with this Marlin Jackson auto RC from 2005 SP Authentic (#746/850) so it gets the spotlight to itself for a minute.  This is a fairly textbook SPA look (if not one of its best) and comes with a cool camp action photo, plus Jackson's interesting signature (a.k.a. hit #22 in his collection).

The final three cards today represent a pair of Giants notables.  Amani Toomer appears on an insert you've seen before this series:  2000 Fleer Focus's Draft Position parallel.  His card's numbered /204 because he was the fourth selection in the second round of the '96 draft (a round after Carolina took Biakabutuka).

RB (running beast) Tyrone Wheatley stars on the other two inserts:  '95 Sportflix's Rolling Thunder and a '96 Leaf Press Proof.  The former is another example of my love for 90s inserts while the latter is a fun die-cut version of one of the decade's hotter parallel types.

After I put these away I'll have just one post left before I can get back to 2019 fodder.  Stay tuned!

2018 COMC purchases: Michigan miscellany

Let's get this 2018 stuff done!  Up today I'm featuring 10 cards that won't be going into any of my football player collections but were still fun adds:

Where my numbered insert fans at?!  Funch stars on the always great Playoff Ticket parallel from Panini's Contenders--the 2016 version in this case.  It's hard to see but it's numbered 136/249 up front.  You'd have to go back 16 years with Conan and Andy Richter--in the year 2000--to find Grbac's Fleer Focus Draft Position parallel that's allegedly numbered to his, uh, draft position:  823 (my copy is #324).  These are done in kind of a goofy way as Elvis actually went #219 overall in '93, but because he was an 8th round selection, and the 23rd player chosen in that round, you get 823.  Whatever, it's a fun parallel!

I have just one RC to show off today, but you might see a couple more in the last two posts of this series.  Today's Rookie Blue addition is a guy whose drafting team wore Honolulu blue, though he's since moved on to Miami:  Jake Rudock.  According to my checklist this is the sixth of his eight rookies I need to track down:  a very thick 2016 Panini Spectra card #d 03/99.  I'll go ahead and tease that I have something new of his coming in my Spring Cleaning COMC package, but until I can show that off I'll continue to chase his 2016 Absolute and Panini Prizm RCs.

The rest of this post is a hit parade fit for Motown.  That starts with this long Butt, the second of Jake's pair of autos from 2017 Contenders (in this case, the one that's not considered his RC).  I usually like Contenders and who could hate a signature that says "J Butt"?  That's my fifth hit of the oft-injured but hopefully healthy for 2019 TE.

Plate alert!  In what's only my second hit (the other's an auto) of the Liberian WR--who still appears to be with KC but has all of three catches to his name--I'm proud to show off this Magenta Plate of Jehu Chesson from 2017 Prizm that was inserted into Panini's Plates & Patches product.  It looks to be my 118th 1/1 and is a nice addition to what's apparently a neglected player in my football collection!

Chesson's collection stands in stark contrast to his former teammate in the WR room, Amara Darboh.  Darboh's home country of Sierra Leone sits next to Liberia along the northwest coast of Africa, but that's where their similarities end as far as their cards go in my PC.  That's because of days like today when I get to show off a crazy four new hits, all with signatures.

Up top is a pair featuring "just" autographs:  2017 Elite's Pen Pals plus a Panini Contenders Optic RC auto.  The former is a bit plain but was fine for the price, and the latter proves that Panini can occasionally use Topps' Chrome look to its advantage.

Then on the bottom we go landscape-style for a couple auto/jersey pairings.  #1 is a jersey/auto/RC (with a very interesting, if tiny, swatch!) from Certified Cuts that's #d 047/299.  I realize the idea of a cut signature is kind of silly for a player that hasn't passed away or become unable to sign, but I think it's still a fun design once in a while.  And switching gears is the somewhat Pacific-like Phoenix brand and its Rookie Jersey Autographs insert.  Here we get a sticker auto along with a larger swatch, though the print run is still the same (#117/299).

That's 13 hits of the receiver who's back for another shot with Seattle in 2019.

And last but not least is this 2002 Pacific Exclusive Game Worn Jerseys relic of former Michigan/Buffalo TE Jay Riemersma.  A Bill with 23 NFL TDs to his name, Riemersma doesn't pop up in my posts too often, but this is my third hit of him (two autographs), which puts him ahead of a bunch of Michigan alumni in my collection.  And I really like the bold blue swatch from his jersey here.

With these done I have two more posts planned featuring lots more like what you just saw, so stay tuned!